io8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. 



By victor and CATHERINE HENRI. 



IIT 1895 we published in a number of reviews and addressed to 

 individuals a series of questions relative to the tenacity and dis- 

 tinctness of visual and auditive impressions, and to the earliest 

 recollections of childhood. We have received one hundred and 

 twenty-three answers to them, a larger number than we had antici- 

 pated, of which seventy-five came from Russia (obtained largely 

 through the courtesy of Prof. A. Wedensky, of the University of 

 St. Petersburg), thirty-five from France, seven from England, and 

 six from America. Of them, further, thirty-five were from women 

 and eighty-eight from men; seventy-seven from persons between 

 sixteen and twenty-five years old; thirty from those between twenty- 

 five and thirty-five years old, and sixteen from persons of between 

 thirty-six and sixty-five years. ISTearly all the respondents were 

 teachers or pupils, and some were lawyers, some doctors, and two 

 ministers. 



In examining the answers we found it difficult to classify them 

 fully and draw absolute general results from them. We proceeded 

 thus : Each of us read the responses separately, and took note of the 

 general ideas that seemed to be elicited from them; then one of us 

 wrote in a general table in detail the principal points in each answer, 

 and this done, the other underlined the points in the answers that 

 seemed most important. The questions relative to visual and audi- 

 tive images did not elicit any new results. Most of the persons an- 

 swered that they had clear visual and weaker auditive images; a 

 small number (thirteen) had better auditive than visual images; and 

 there were persons who, using visual memory, were better able 

 to represent forms, others colors; some, with auditive memory, pieces 

 of music, and others words. We asked these questions in order to 

 learn whether there was not some relation between the nature of the 

 predominant images held in the eye or ear and the first recollections. 



To the questions concerning earliest recollections, one hundred of 

 our respondents had some recollection from infancy which seemed 

 to be first; twenty had two or three recollections of infancy sepa- 

 rated by days, weeks, or months, but could not give their chrono- 

 logical order; and three had no special recollection which they could 

 indicate as earliest or as from a certain age. They could recall a 

 series of facts, generally without chronological order. The age to 

 which they referred these facts — five, six, or seven years — was quite 

 advanced, and considerably greater than that given by other per- 

 sons — two or three years — for their earliest recollections. 



